Moments of Waiting
by TallysGreatestFan
Summary: In between having finished school and the start of his diplomatic training, time seems like a concept strangely diffecult to grasp, and everything seems possible, and the young novince Lennier reflects about his future - and how surreal it still feels to him.


**Moments of Waiting**

The Tha'Domo-Training was one of the few constants left in his live. Lennier was relieved at how it gave his live at least the semblance of structure in between all this free time. Time seemed to be something strangely difficult to catch in between the last week of school and the start of his training, and he was afloat in between it.

He paced inside the inner courtyard in front of the material arts school. Noli already sat in one of the chairs at the grass field in front. He had expected that she would look different, her bone crest would allready have the geometrical shapes of Worker Caste, or she would wear their clothes at least. But Noli only was so lanky and strangely not-existent underneath the light garment, which her thin body hardly managed to provide substance. Her sharp face turned in his direction.

,,How was your internship?", like always the beginning of an conversation required a little courage, even with an longtime friend like Noli.

She told about her work on the hyperspace-telescope far afield in Minbari-teritory. Lennier tried to imagine to travel so far away from the cloister himself. He failed. Distances could be understood rationally, but he could not really grasp them. Just like the idea of leaving the monastery one day. It seemed surreal to him. How good that even his diplomatic training took place here.

,,What have you been up to lately?", Noli asked.

He smiled a bit coy. ,,Not much. At the last school week I looked forward to having more time for my researches and new projects and to be able to rest. I had planed so much. Yet actually I did absolutely nothing. The energy left me as the spare time begun."

,,Most people are glad about the spare time, to travel and find to themselves."

,,I know.", how useless he was, if he didn't managed that, ,,But I not. I miss the structure of school time. I think at my next days and weeks and I don't know at all what I will do there, except for praying. It is just vastness."

,,What a strange thought, never having school again."

,,Yes."

They simply sat there for a moment. The grass shimmered green-bluish in the sun light. Inside the vines at the wall to the right of them birds chirped.

,,Did you went swimming yet? So hot how it is right now…"

,,Yes. It even was fun.", he remembered how he dived around in the pleasantly cool water, after he finally could stop thinking about how everybody was able to see his damn spindly, ugly body.

Noli laughed. ,,You probably showed your towel-acrobatics again…"

,,I want to spare the others from having to see that shame", he announced, laughing too.

,,We could go swimming tomorrow. If the weather stays like this."

,,If we can still move then. Tirall surly lets us walk Kshar'venn the whole time, including sore muscles."

,,Oh no…"

,,And you still want to become a diplomat?", she asked after a while.

Lennier breathed in deeply and tried to force down the feeling of not being able to serve his people good enough no matter what he would do that crept up his heart ominously often last time.

,,I know that with my shyness and my missing social abilities I am not exactly most suitable for it. But politic is like history that happens now, and how could I serve the Minbari in any other way with using my knowledge about history? All this coherences and progresses, and one is right in the middle of it while everything changes… I have always been the best in history, and even if the teachers say one would need to be able to analyze interactions between people, they also mean that I have to use my abilities, everything else would be squandering. And they say I am good in serving others."

,,You are so good in every subject."

,,Yes.", but why did he feel so lost then? ,,But I just wouldn't know what else I could do. I am so glad that this predestined way exists for me."

He looked at her. ,,And you still want to change to Worker Caste?"

,,I want to become cosmologist. Actual cosmologist, not just priestess of space. My destiny. The eldest wouldn't make a mistake. My believe is to inconsistent…"

,,What would prove your believe more than trying to understand the universe that manifests in all of us, no matter which caste we belong to?", he tried to comfort her.

She smiled. And he didn't manage to imagine, she would truly be Worker Caste after the end of the summer. And that he would take classes in diplomacy.


End file.
